While the mass killings in Isla Vista of course denote the immediate need to reform the tragically broken mental health system that so obviously failed Elliot Rodger and his family, it would be similarly tragic to miss the opportunity to have a forthright national discussion about the culture that gives rise to the twisted world of the "men's rights" activist movement - a group with which Rodger and millions of men self-identify. Rodger was an active member of the "PUAhate" online forum (now taken down.)

As Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak wrote this week, "He may have been mentally ill, but he was also the product of a culture that objectifies, demeans and sexualizes women. Nearly 1 in 5 American women report being raped at some time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The raging sexual assault epidemic in our military and on our college campuses is a reflection of the entitlement too many men feel they have to women's bodies."

The power of a hashtag

Before this past week's events, I had dismissed the world of Twitter - the social media platform that allows anyone with a keyboard to transmit a thought in 140 characters or less to others worldwide using hashtags to organize searchable topics of interest. I had dismissed it, because I'd seen it used primarily for decidedly fluffy pursuits, like news of Kim and Kanye's wedding.

But then I discovered the #YesAllWomen campaign. I believe #YesAllWomen (for a quick summary, read: "When a Hash Tag Matters" at www.bit.ly/1tQf6pM) exploded not because we're turning a blind eye to the need for serious mental health reform but because half the population has had it up to here with the relentless barrage of violence they encounter at every turn in their daily lives - in both covert and overt ways.

Over the weekend, using the shorthand of the Twitter social media world, I tweeted "#YesAllWomen bc no one should have to hear 'it wasn't really #rape; why aren't you OVER it?' - esp frm other women. #culturalmisogyny."

This was retweeted, by women I didn't know, to more than 4,000 of their Twitter followers within minutes of my posting. (Anything over 1,000 is a "respectable" number in the Twitter universe.)

Are we going to have a serious discussion in this country about the misogyny ingrained in our culture? These Twitter users thought so, and this is why:

-- Because we women must constantly be on guard when we walk the distance between our car and our place of work - or to the doctor, or the corner market. (When was the last time you advised your son to walk holding his keys splayed out like knives between his knuckles?) #YesAllWomen.

-- Because women are more likely to be sexually assaulted if they attend college than those who do not. #YesAllWomen.

-- Because 'I have a boyfriend' is the easiest way to get a man to leave you alone (because he respects another man more than you). #YesAllWomen.

It's true, #NotAllMen share the mind-set advocated by those in the men's rights activist movement. But the movement's tenets are steeped in the entertainment we watch, the news we consume, the products we buy and the attitudes of too many of the men we encounter in everyday life.

Normalized in our culture

If violence against women in our culture weren't so normalized, would "wife beater" be a colloquialism for an article of clothing? And would there be a backlog of hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits in cities and counties nationwide, as reported by CBS News in 2009 - and thousands in the Bay Area alone, according to Alameda County District Attorney Nancy E. O'Malley, who is co-sponsoring a bill with Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, to impose strict time limits on submitting kits to crime labs, among other reforms.

And something else: Using the Centers for Disease Control's estimates of incidents of domestic violence based on the 2010 census, an estimated 18,000 San Francisco women will become victims of domestic violence this year alone, according to Kathy Black, executive director of La Casa de las Madres, an anti-domestic-violence organization in San Francisco.

Yes, Elliot Rodger was mentally ill, and yes the system failed him. But the culture of guns and violence against women that gave rise to his chilling manifesto and posted videos can no longer be ignored.